A Picture is Worth 1000 Words #writingwednesdays

Terri Webster Schrandt is a leisure educator, blogger, and retired recreation and parks practitioner living in Northern California. Second Wind Leisure Perspectives is her blog about living a leisure lifestyle. Connect with her on Twitter.

I’m glad to welcome Terri here to share 3 tips on an important aspect of blogging and publishing – using the right images to bring our words to life.

A Picture is Worth 1000 Words: Three Tips For Images on Your Blog

Tip 1: Use photos and images on your blog page or website.

When I visit other blogs, I like to see a few images. Some themes do not allow a lot of images and many folks prefer a simple, clean page. A great header image that embodies the personality of your blog is nice to see.

On my blog’s page, my header photo shows a stylized image with my brand logo. You will also see my “about me” photo which I change every few months. Many bloggers choose not to use photos of themselves and that is pure choice. Scrolling down on my sidebar you will see social media icons and other images. I also included a gallery including awards and challenges I have accepted. Careful use of images on your blog page or website creates interest and is pleasing to the reader’s eye.

Tip 2: Use an image in your blog posts.

There is nothing like a compelling image on your blog post to attract readers. Many bloggers might argue that good quality content is all one needs for a successful post and for many, this may be true.

However, we are visual people and including a great image in your post attracts readers. Stats do not lie. If you blog on WordPress, take a look at the Reader. Count how many posts include a featured image. Do you tend to click on the posts with an interesting image, especially if that image underpins the subject of the post? I sure do!

Most of my posts have one or two images. Too many images can break up the text in a blog post, making it difficult to read. I read blogs that use lots of images and gifs (you know the silly photos that repeat wildly?) and while use of these can be entertaining and humorous, they can be distracting. When you use images, do so sparingly. If you choose to use a large amount of images, consider creating a gallery that you can embed into your post. Scrolling through too many images can send a reader quickly away from your page!

Tip 3: Use your OWN images for your blog posts.

Why use your own images? Can you say “copyright infringement”? A graphic artist friend, who is in this business, said that this is the new, trending lawsuit. Other bloggers have described their terrible experiences of innocently using a random photo on their blog post and were sued.

There are free or low-cost stock images available. The Beginners Guide for WordPress has this great article about using images.

If you use images from the web, use caution. Even acknowledging the image’s origin may not be good enough. Most of us do not make money with our blogs and having to pay upwards to $8000 for misuse of an image can be tragic.

Do you have friends or family who are photographers? Ask to use their photos. Simply e-mail them asking their permission to use their photos in your blog or website. My freelance photographer friend gave me written and verbal permission to use her images.

Original image by Kimberly Glaster freelancerphotos4u.wordpress.com

By doing this, you have officially documented their permission. Your photo’s caption might read: “photo of tree, used with permission by so-and-so’s name.” This also gives the photographer credit for the image, especially if he or she has published it on another website. The dog photo shows a similar example and since I edited the image, I watermarked it.

Perhaps you take terrible pictures or don’t own a good digital camera? Most of us have a smart phone with a camera. Use it. I installed Dropbox on my laptop, tablet and phone. As soon as I take a photo with my phone, it puts into Dropbox automatically. Edit your image with a program like Photoshop, Canva or PicMonkey. I started with the free version of PicMonkey and it is perfectly fine.

Why edit your photos? Cropping your images is recommended. You can also adjust the color or edit the image into black and white for the effect you seek. Also, back to copyright laws, I highly recommend watermarking your image. A watermark usually consists of some version of your name and website.

PicMonkey and Pinterest have great tutorials for editing and watermarking. Is watermarking your image a foolproof way to protect your intellectual digital property? Some say yes and some say no. Just google “watermarking your images” and see what pops up! Again, it will be your preference.

Using your own images in your blog posts is also another way to share your posts using social media. But you will have to buy my book to find out the rest! 🙂

About corinnerodrigues

A lover of words. A self-acceptance blogger. A blogging coach. A book reviewer. A woman happily journeying through midlife, moving from self-improvement to self-acceptance and enjoying being herself.
Corinne writes at Everyday Gyaan, reviews fiction at CorinneRodrigues.com and encourages writers and bloggers at Write Tribe and offers offline coaching to writers and bloggers at The Frangipani Creative, located in Secunderabad, India.

Reader Interactions

Comments

I appreciate your post and agree that photos entice me to stick around and read a post. I also like the idea of changing your picture occasionally. I’m going to incorporate that suggestion into my blog. I try to use only my own photos or those of friends. Occasionally, I go online for images and I’m careful to give credit when I do. But it makes me a bit nervous unless I pay.

Thank you for the wonderful comments so far! I really wish you good luck with your photo editing. It is worth it if you want to attract readers to your blogs and websites. Please feel free to contact me at http://www.secondwindleisure.com
Thank you Corinne for the opportunity to share my post with you all today!

It is true that we tend to ‘notice’ a post if it has an image. We are visually wired, so to say. Images are attractive and like magnets, they pull you towards them. Using a proper image, and one’s own is definitely the best thing to do. Thanks for the valuable tips Terri…As for the prompt, it is great…Has set me thinking…..

Thanks for the tips. I feel comfortable using my images but also use free stock images. Images definitely have more impact on grabbing reader’s attention. I love Canva, but never tried water marking my images. May be, it’s time to start that.

Great Tips, there. I’m scared of using images too from others. I only use those which are free to use, but even that gives me sleepless nights sometimes. I have only recently discovered Canva and I’m using it to edit my own images at the moment.

It does take a little extra time to edit and watermark the image. If fact, image editing can take as much time as writing the post. But the image carries over to everything on the web and it is the first thing people see, especially if they look at Google images. A lot of images get “stolen” from there, that’s why it is important to watermark. I use picmonkey and their tutorial for creating a water mark is very easy to do.